


Beside Myself, Beside You (Berlin Romance)

by merle_p



Category: Dogs of Berlin (TV)
Genre: Berlin (City), Canon-typical Crime Scenarios, Cultural Differences, Discussion of Racism, Enemies to Lovers, Frottage, Infidelity, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season/Series 01, Resolved Sexual Tension, Uneasy Allies To Lovers, Workplace Relationship, dog metaphors, mention of canon relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:48:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26868427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merle_p/pseuds/merle_p
Summary: Erol isn’t entirely sure whether to be grateful or a little disappointed. Truth be told, there is a part of him that actuallyneedsKurt to remind him at least occasionally of what an asshole he can be.Because the thing is: Since they got all the secrets between them out of the way, since they agreed to fight the same dirty fight on (roughly) the same side, Erol has slowly been forced to admit over the course of the past six months that in some strange, twisted, unforeseen way, they actually make a fucking awesome team.
Relationships: Erol Birkan/Kurt Grimmer
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11
Collections: Fic In A Box





	Beside Myself, Beside You (Berlin Romance)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [within_a_dream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/gifts).



> Dear within_a_dream, thank you for giving me the chance to play around a little with these two characters - your letter gave me so many ideas! I hope you like it :)
> 
> The title is loosely inspired by a line from the song "Außer Dir" by the Berlin band "Wir sind Helden". 
> 
> There's also a mini soundtrack in the end notes, if you want some Berlin hip hop to play in the background while you are reading.

“Fuck,” Erol curses and leans forward, hands on his knees as he is catching his breath. Next to him, Kurt is breathing equally hard, his face red from exertion, sweat-soaked t-shirt clinging to his back.

“Hey you,” Erol says to the teenager who is sitting on the low stairs in front of the memorial, watching them with dispassionate curiosity.

“You see where he went?”

The kid takes a drag on his cigarette and looks at him through the smoke, eyes narrow.

“You guys cops?”

“Yeah, we are cops,” Kurt snaps, “so you better do not fucking lie.”

“Sorry,” the kid says, predictably and blatantly untruthfully. “Wasn’t paying attention.”

Erol wipes the sweat out of his eyes and swears under his breath. It’s not even like he blames the kid for not wanting to get involved – but damnit, they were _this_ close to getting their hands on a guy who might have been able to tell them more about the military-grade weapons that have been disappearing from the SIG Sauer plant in Eckernförde and somehow keep finding their way into the hands of fucking neo-Nazis in Marzahn.

And then at the last minute, the guy got spooked when they flashed their badges and ran, and here they are, with nothing to show for other than a 1500-meter sprint through Hasenheide Park on the first sunny day of the year, a side stitch, and the sweat that is running down Erol’s neck like the waterfalls in Antalya.

He glances around quickly, but this early on a weekday the park is deserted, and the kid looks like he doesn't give two shits about them as long as they leave him alone. _Fuck it_ , Erol thinks. He swiftly pulls his Henley over his head and balls up the fabric in one fist, then drags it across his face, his chest, over the back of his neck. The shirt is as damp as the rest of him, so it’s not really doing all that much, but it soaks up the worst of the sweat, and the cool breeze feels nice on his bare skin.

When he finally lowers the shirt again, Kurt is watching him with an unreadable expression on his face.

“What,” Erol says, irritated, and Kurt shrugs, grimaces, eventually settles on something vaguely resembling a smirk.

“What’s with the stripper routine,” he says, but his voice is flat, like he can’t quite muster the energy for the undertone that would be required to make his commentary an effective insult.

Erol heroically refrains from punching Kurt in the face and throws the soaked shirt over his shoulder.

“I wouldn’t know,” he says testily. “I thought that’s more your area of expertise.”

Erol can see Kurt’s jaw working, as if he is actively struggling to remind himself that it is now his turn to come up with some kind of offensive retort. 

“Yes, strippers with actual tits,” he finally sneers, but it’s half-hearted at best. He turns around on the path and starts to head back through the park, leaving Erol to stare after him, perplexed.

“The fuck was that about,” he says. A little belatedly, he remembers that the kid has been watching the entire exchange and turns his head to find him grinning behind his cigarette.

“What are you looking at,” he snaps. The kid shrugs lazily and quirks a brow.

“Hey, nice abs, man,” he says and blows a cloud of smoke in his direction. 

Erol opens his mouth to respond, pauses when he finds himself torn between _Fuck you_ and _Thank you_ , and in the end settles on flipping the kid the finger over his shoulder as he breaks into a jog to catch up with Kurt.

Maybe not the most professional move. But then, Kurt Grimmer always seems to bring out the unprofessional side in him.

By the time they reach the car, Erol has slipped back into his seriously disgusting shirt, and Kurt seems to have gotten over whatever was bothering him, if forking over four euros for Erol’s fries and diet coke during their lightning-quick lunch on the way back to the office is any indication.

Erol isn’t entirely sure whether to be grateful or a little disappointed. Truth be told, there is a part of him that actually _needs_ Kurt to remind him at least occasionally of what an asshole he can be. 

Because the thing is: Since they got all the secrets between them out of the way, since they agreed to fight the same dirty fight on (roughly) the same side, Erol has slowly been forced to admit over the course of the past six months that in some strange, twisted, unforeseen way, they actually make a fucking awesome team.

And there will be these moments, when Kurt claps a hand over his shoulder after Erol puts handcuffs on some fucker they’ve been trying to get their fingers on all week, when they break out the beer and drink in mostly comfortable silence during a long, long night of paperwork at the office, when they keep each other’s backs free, shoulder against shoulder, during a high-risk raid – moments that make it almost, _almost_ possible for Erol to forget.

Moments when Erol can almost forget where Kurt comes from, can almost forget the barbs, the lies, can almost forget the fact that he’s got a crooked nose because not even a year ago Kurt and his friends jumped him to beat the shit out of him.

He vents to Rafika about it over drinks on Friday night. They haven’t done a lot of this recently: between Rafika’s slow path to full recovery and Erol’s life being absorbed first by the aftermath of the Tarik-Amir mess and then by their current mission to get behind the illegal weapons deal, some of their old traditions have fallen by the wayside.

But tonight he was eager to get out of the house and out of his own head. Guido is in Hamburg for the month, visiting an old friend from school – ostensibly to help out with her new renovation project, but Erol strongly suspects that the duration of the visit is more about Guido’s increasingly obvious unease with the recent developments in Erol’s work life. There has been more than one pointed comment, there have been icy silences and angry fights, and Erol knows he should probably work on figuring out how to save his crumbling six-year relationship, but instead he’s squeezed next to Rafika into a shabby velvety loveseat in the corner of a hipster bar in Prenzlauer Berg, nursing his fourth G&T and complaining to Rafika about Kurt Grimmer’s failure to live up to his terrible reputation. 

Rafika frowns at him over the rim of her glass. She’s got that look on her face that tells him she’s thinking about saying something he won’t like.

“Erol,” she finally sighs. “Just be careful.”

He furrows his brows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Rafika presses her lips together and shakes her head at him.

“Nothing,” she says. “Just make sure you don’t get in too deep. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

He huffs and downs the last of his drink.

“Little late for that.”

“Fair enough,” she concedes. “So maybe I don’t want to see you get hurt _more.”_

“I’m always careful,” he says (lies) and pushes himself up from the couch. “Another drink?”

“Sure,” she nods, but before he can take a step towards the bar, his phone starts to vibrate.

“Shit,” he says, fumbling for his back pocket, then groans when he sees the caller ID. 

“Speaking of the devil,” he says, and watches Rafika’s brows climb up her forehead.

“Where are you?” Kurt asks when he picks up, not bothering with a greeting.

Erol presses the phone against his right ear and his free hand over the left to shut out some of the background noise.

“A bar,” he grits out. “It’s my night off, and almost midnight.”

“Yeah, well, I’m going to come pick you up,” Kurt says. “I need you with me.”

Erol drags a hand over his face and steadfastly refuses to think more closely about Kurt's unfortunate phrasing.

“I’m drunk.”

“As long as you are not about to pass out, I do not care if you are high on heroine,” Kurt says dryly. “I have a lead on a guy who has a grudge against someone involved in the SIG Sauer theft. But we need to grab him now before he changes his mind and disappears on us too … or ends up dead in a ditch for talking to the police.”

“Fine,” Erol sighs, resigned. “I’m at the Wohnzimmer Bar. Lette Street.”

“Deep in hipster territory,” Kurt says, and Erol can practically hear his smirk over the line. “Still working on getting yourself gentrified?”

“You are one to talk,” Erol grumbles. “I’m not the one who’s hiding from his Plattenbau past in a fancy villa in Willmersdorf.”

Kurt laughs quietly, sounding genuinely amused. “Wait outside,” he says, “I’ll be there in fifteen.”

Erol grimaces at Rafika as he slips the phone back into his pocket. “Work, sorry,” he says apologetically.

Rafika gives him a long look. “So I gathered,” she says slowly and reaches for her purse. “Just remember what I said.”

“Be careful, got it,” he nods, and offers her a hand to pull her to her feet.

He does pick up Rafika’s tab to make up for cutting their night short, and she hugs him on the sidewalk before heading off towards the nearest subway stop. It’s a mild night, and the fresh air feels nice after the haze of cigarette smoke inside the bar. He’s only been waiting for five minutes when some guy hits on him under the pretense of asking for a lighter – or at least Erol assumes that he’s hitting on him, because he keeps hanging around with the unlit cigarette between his fingers even after Erol tells him that he cannot help.

Kurt pulls up in his black Audi, tires screeching, just when the guy seems to be working up the courage to ask Erol what he’s doing with the rest of his night.

“Come on,” Kurt shouts through the rolled-down window, gesturing for him to hurry up. Erol’s anonymous suitor looks crushed, and Erol gives him a little wave and an apologetic shrug before climbing into the passenger seat, relieved to have a means of escape.

“Grindr date?” Kurt asks, staring out through the windshield into the night, his voice devoid of any real inflection but with a note of badly hidden curiosity shining through underneath.

Erol rolls his eyes and doesn’t point out that the guy probably thought the same about Kurt – or that both of them couldn’t be more wrong because Erol hasn’t been on anything resembling a Grindr date since before Grindr was even invented.

“Just some dude looking for a lighter,” he simply says. “I was out with Masaad.” He fastens his seatbelt and looks at Kurt from the side.

“So where are we going?”

“Zehlendorf,” Kurt says, prompting Erol to raise his brows.

“A rich guy?”

“Yep,” Kurt nods, still without really looking at him. “Used to be a big deal at SIG Sauer, fucked another exec’s college-age daughter, things got complicated. He’s in management at Siemens now, so it worked out okay for him. Anyway, he claims he knows who’s letting the guns disappear at the plant and where in Berlin they are going.”

“So why is he talking to us?” Erol asks, blinking forcefully in an effort to keep his eyes open. The alcohol is hitting him properly now, it’s getting late, and _fuck_ , he really shouldn’t be working like this.

Kurt shrugs. “He’s still pissed that the girl’s dad told his wife about the affair and he ended up losing the horses in the divorce.”

“Horses, uhuh,” Erol makes and slides lower in his seat. At this time of night, it’s a 40-minute drive to Zehlendorf, and he can probably get away with resting his eyes a little on the way. He tries not to think too hard about the fact that he feels safe enough to doze off in the passenger seat while Kurt is driving them across half Berlin in the middle of the night.

Eventually, he senses the car coming to a stop, and he blinks his eyes open, a little disoriented. Clumsily he pushes himself upright and blindly fumbles for the door handle before he realizes that Kurt is not making any move to get out of the car.

“Is this it?” he asks, confused, and turns his head to find Kurt sitting very still behind the wheel, keys in his hand, actually looking at Erol for the first time since he got in the car.

“Something wrong?” Erol asks, rubbing his face.

Kurt silently shakes his head.

“You –“ he says, swallows, gestures, and that’s when Erol remembers what he looks like: dressed for a night of barhopping, in a too-tight low-cut white v-neck shirt that’s transparent enough to show the outline of his nipples when the light hits it just so, with mussed hair, eyeliner, and – crap – a trace of Rafika’s lipstick, because that’s the kind of ridiculous dare she comes up with when she’s in the right mood.

No wonder that guy with the cigarette was coming onto him. No wonder Kurt is staring at him now, and Erol sits up straight and steels himself for the mocking that is surely to come any second now.

Instead, Kurt shrugs out of his jacket and holds it out to him.

“Thanks,” Erol says cautiously, and slips into the brown leather jacket, zipping it up halfway. It fits well enough – a little loose around the shoulders, but still warm from the heat of Kurt’s body and far more comfortable than it has any right to be.

He rubs the back of his hand over his mouth to get rid of the lipstick, then drags his thumb along his lower eyelids.

“Better?” he asks hopefully, and Kurt raises his brows, his face hovering in a weird space somewhere between panicked and amused.

“Now you look like a hooker,” he says wryly, but it doesn’t really sound like an insult, and so Erol doesn’t even flinch when Kurt reaches across the gear stick to fish a pack of tissues from the glove compartment.

“Hold still,” Kurt warns him, a little roughly, as he reaches for his chin, and Erol closes his eyes and bites the inside of his cheek while Kurt carefully wipes the makeup off his face.

“Alright,” Kurt finally murmurs, and Erol opens his eyes to see Kurt ball up the used tissue and toss it into the backseat without even checking where it lands.

“Let’s go get this guy,” he says and climbs out of the car.

Erol follows him at a slower pace and desperately wishes he was sober. Because this? This is exactly the kind of thing that makes it far, far too easy to forget.

And Erol doesn't really need Rafika to tell him just how dangerous forgetting can be. He is well aware that if he allows himself to forget about all the reasons why people like him and Kurt don’t really mix, he may find himself in the shower on Saturday morning, just the tiniest bit hungover, and his thoughts may be wandering idly to the strange expression on Kurt’s face when he’d looked at him the night before, and from there it’s only a small step further to making atrociously bad decisions such as, say, wrapping a hand around his soap-slick cock and jerking off to images of Kurt’s broad shoulders and strong thighs while the hot water is pounding against his back.

Never mind that Erol has a boyfriend – a nice, gentle, politically correct boyfriend, the good kind of German who is not ashamed to show his face at middle-class parties with a Turkish cop from Kreuzberg on his arm. Never mind that Kurt is married with two kids and banging who-knows-how-many busty, bleach-blonde chicks on the side.

Never mind that Kurt is as hardcore macho as they come, the kind who probably used to shower with his ass to the wall at the police academy and who won’t let a girl touch the underside of his balls out of fear that her finger might slip.

Never mind that Kurt comes from a family that taught him to sing the first verse of the German national anthem, even though Erol does believe Kurt when he says that he’s done once and for all with that shit.

At least he really, really hopes that he is right about that part. Because if it turns out that he is mistaken about Kurt having cut ties with his family permanently, then their entire current operation, their unit, and most of all Erol’s conscience are all going to be fucked in major ways.

“You sure you are okay with this?” he asks, trying to keep any trace of worry out of his voice.

He has pulled Kurt into the tiny copy room next to the team office and closed the door behind them, going as far as to flip the lock from the inside. He can only imagine what this looks like to the team – he caught a glimpse of Kuscha narrowing his eyes at him before he resolutely shut the door in his face – but harmless watercooler gossip is the least of his concerns right now.

Their impromptu midnight trip to Zehlendorf paid off in ways they had barely dared to hope. The information they got from the former SIG Sauer executive has not only given the colleagues in Eckernförde what they need to plan a sting operation at the factory – it has also allowed their team in Berlin to put enough evidence together to arrest at least a handful of the ring leaders involved in the deal.

It’s the kind of easy investigative success they don’t get to see every day, and the atmosphere in the office is celebratory, the team in high spirits. Kurt, on the other hand, has been looking all morning like he’s ready to crawl out of his skin. He looks strained, _haunted_ , and Erol is reminded of a rescue dog that, no matter how much love and care and expensive dog food you heap onto him, might still snap and take off someone’s hand if they come at him the wrong way.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Kurt retorts predictably. His posture is defensive, his eyes are darting restlessly around the cramped space, and Erol tries to keep his own stance non-threatening by dropping his shoulders and turning his palms outward at his sides.

“This is the first time we are getting this close to their circles, and on such serious charges.” He glances at Kurt’s profile.

“I won’t pretend that I don’t think they are scum,” he continues, “but they have close connections to the people around your family. Chances are they know everything about who you are. So if you wanted to back out of this one …”

“No,” Kurt interrupts him sharply, and finally looks him in the eye. “No. You didn’t back out when things got personal for you last year.”

Erol frowns. “If you mean Canberk, that was …”

Kurt shakes his head. “Not what I’m talking about. What, you think I don’t know that you used to fuck Tarik-Amir’s bride before you officially switched teams?”

Erol stares. “Who told you that?” he asks sharply, and Kurt crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the filing cabinet.

“She did,” he says. “During the interrogation. She seemed to think that you might put in a good word for her.” He shrugs. “It certainly explained why you made sure that you weren’t there for the conversation with her.”

Erol swallows. “I tried to warn her,” he admits, guilt a heavy weight in his stomach. “Before.”

Kurt rolls his eyes. “Of course you did,” he says, “like anyone would have. You tried to warn her, and she didn’t listen, and then you went and got her and her fiancé arrested on their wedding day without even batting an eye.”

He raises his chin. “You really think if it came to that I wouldn’t be able to do the same?”

Erol glances at him carefully. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“You still don’t trust me?” Kurt asks. He doesn’t even really sound offended, but there’s an uncharacteristic hint of uncertainty in his voice, and even though Erol really should know better, he can’t help but wonder if Kurt is talking about more than just the case.

“Is there a reason I shouldn’t?” he retorts, and Kurt sighs.

“Look,” he says. “I know you have no good reason to believe me, but my brother hates my guts. He’s the big man on the block now, which means my mother has given up hope that I’ll ever be back. I’m done with them. They are done with me. I might as well be dead to them.”

“Not sure if that’s an occasion for condolences or for congratulations,” Erol says dryly, and Kurt snorts and scratches his neck.

“It is what it is,” he says, glancing up at Erol, and their eyes lock. Kurt opens his mouth, but a sharp knock on the door makes them both flinch before he can say anything else.

“Kurt,” Kuscha shouts. “What the fuck are you doing in there? You coming out any time soon?”

“What, you can’t survive for five minutes without me holding your hand?” Kurt shouts back, but he does push away from the cabinet and reaches for the door.

At the last moment, he pauses and turns around.

“But thank you,” he says earnestly, and lifts his hand to pat Erol's chest. Erol forces himself to breathe and prays that Kurt can’t actually feel the violent beat Erol’s heart is drumming right underneath his palm. Then Kurt clears his throat and steps back, his fingers slipping away.

“Thanks for having my back out there.”

“Anytime,” Erol responds blankly, and it sounds like a platitude, but the terrible thing is that he thinks he might actually mean what he says.

The memory of Kurt’s hand against his front lingers, like a phantom sensation, and Erol feels his perception narrowing down to the space between his ribs where Kurt’s palm had rested every time his mind wanders back to the moment in the copy room.

It messes with his head enough to be a distraction, and the distraction ends up making him careless at a time when he really cannot afford to be.

They make five arrests the day after their conversation in the copy room, and even though Erol is jaded enough to realize that interrupting one particular supply route for guns is just barely scraping the surface of the actual problem, it still feels deeply satisfying to look each of the Nazi pigs straight in the eye while they are led away in handcuffs by his men.

The satisfaction about a job well done makes it easier to shrug off the cold stares of the neighbors watching from their windows as the team leads the arrested men through the door of the apartment building and across the courtyard, makes it possible to ignore the small crowd of skinheads lurking around the entrance who trail them all the way to the side street where the police vans are parked.

In fact, he is so good at ignoring them that he almost misses one of them pulling a knife on Kurt. It’s a kid, really, a nobody, the younger brother of one the guys they just busted, but in hindsight Erol thinks they probably should have expected something like this. Kurt showing up in person to take down the leaders of his former community must seem like a slap in the face to them, and what better way for a young ambitious man to prove himself than by taking out the traitor who’s been blacklisted by his own immediate family?

Yet not even Kurt himself sees it coming, and Erol only sees it _happen_ because he’s spent all day shooting glances at Kurt when he really, really shouldn’t, _damnit_ , but at least it gives him the split-second he needs to stop the guy from driving his butterfly knife into Kurt’s kidney from behind.

Except that Erol is also distracted, and possibly not thinking entirely straight, so instead of doing the smart thing and coming at the guy sideways to put an elbow in his face, he takes two steps forward into the path of the knife. The blade catches Erol across the side, and as he curls up instinctively in response to the sharp bite of pain, it occurs to him that today would have been a really good day to wear a protective vest. 

Through the haze of the initial shock, he distantly watches two officers tackle the skinhead, watches others push back the rest of the group, and it takes him a moment to notice that there are hands on him, dragging him away from the crowd, tugging at his shirt.

“Fuck,” Kurt curses, directly into his ear, close enough that Erol can feel his breath against the side of his face. “You fucking asshole, come on, damnit!”

Erol sees Rafika hovering nearby, a little pale around the nose, sees one of Kurt’s men approaching with the first-aid kit. Kurt ignores them both, and Erol, dazed, lets himself be manhandled, doesn’t resist when Kurt jerks up his arm with one hand and with the other rolls up the shirt that is already sticky with Erol’s blood.

“I’m okay, man,” he finally manages to say, blindly reaching for Kurt’s shoulder, as much to steady himself as to offer some kind of helpless reassurance. “It’s just a scratch,” he adds, but Kurt has already lifted his shirt up high enough to run two probing fingers along the cut.

And oh _fuck_ , that’s – a lot. Yeah, no, this is definitely more than a scratch; it’s a respectable flesh wound that bleeds like crazy and hurts like a motherfucker when Kurt puts the slightest bit of pressure on it, but unfortunately it’s not so serious that Erol can ignore the sensation of Kurt’s hands on his skin, and between the pain, the blood loss, and Kurt’s palm on his flank, he is starting to feel a little lightheaded.

“Shit,” Kurt says at last, his voice strangled. He lets go of Erol abruptly, allowing the shirt to slide back down to cover his side. “That could have been –“

“I’m fine,” Erol forces out, not willing to let Kurt complete that sentence. “Just need some stitches, but I’ll live.”

“Erol,” someone says, somewhere nearby, and they turn their heads to see the guy with the first-aid kit and Rafika standing not two meters away, looking more than a little concerned.

“Uhm,” the officer says nervously. “Ambulance is coming, but would you mind if I take a look?”

Kurt blinks, still a little wild-eyed, looking if he only just remembered that there are in fact other people present at the scene. He takes a step backwards, and Erol realizes that he’s covered in blood – it’s all over his hands and his shirt, and when he drags a palm over his forehead, he leaves streaks of red across his face as well.

“Yeah, sure, go ahead,” Kurt says blankly, without really looking at any of them. “I’ll be at the station, deal with intake,” he adds, and then he turns away and stalks over to the vans.

“Crap,” Erol says shakily, and now that he isn’t so immediately overwhelmed by Kurt’s presence in his space, the pain in his side makes itself known insistently.

“Sit down, dude, before you fall over,” Rafika says, a hand on his arm, and he folds himself into a seat on the concrete, allowing the EMT officer to poke and prod him as he pleases. 

Rafika offers him a plastic bottle, then lowers herself to the ground on his other side to watch him gulp down the water in silence.

“What did I tell you about being careful?” she finally asks, and he lowers the bottle so he can roll his eyes at her.

“What was I supposed to do,” he asks, “let Grimmer get stabbed when I was right there?”

“Not walk straight into a knife,” she snaps, “where the hell was your head at?” She pauses. “No, don’t answer that,” she continues quickly, throwing a quick look at the officer who does his best to pretend that he isn’t there, which would be a more successful endeavor if he wasn’t simultaneously torturing Erol by rubbing alcohol into his wound.

“You know that you two just painted big fat targets on each other’s back?” she asks quietly. “They all saw what happened. Clearly Grimmer moved to the top of their shit list when he burnt his last bridges, but now they know that he actually gives a fuck about the Turkish cop … “

“Yeah,” Erol says warily, because she’s right and he knows it. “We’ll be –“

“If you say that you are going to be careful,” Rafika interrupts, “I might actually punch you in the face.” She shifts into a crouch and pats Erol’s shoulder before pushing herself up to standing.

“I’m going to head back with the others,” she says. “I’ll check in with you later.” She gives him a look from narrow eyes.

“I hope it’s worth it,” she says, ominously, and then it’s just him, the officer, and a growing pile of blood-stained cotton pads on the ground.

At the hospital, the doctor stitches him up, then sends him home with painkillers and instructions to take off at least the rest of the week.

Two days later, Erol swallows two Ibuprofen with his morning coffee, slaps a fresh bandage over his stitches, gets dressed and drives into work. Even with his sister and Rafika calling to check in on him, he is going stir-crazy in the apartment, alone with only a slow-healing injury and his thoughts to keep him company.

The solitude makes it a lot more difficult to ignore, for example, that aside from a couple of wallpaper patterns sent to his phone, he hasn’t heard from Guido in four days. The radio silence is mutual: He responds to the pictures with the appropriate starry-eyed emojis, but he doesn’t call, partly because he isn’t sure if Guido actually wants to hear from him and partly because he has no idea how to even start a conversation about all the things that are on his mind.

He certainly doesn’t know how to talk about Kurt, whom he also hasn’t heard from since the raid, although that’s somewhat less unexpected. On the phone, Rafika tells him that Kurt is banned from the interrogations on Seiler’s orders and instead is channeling his energy into pushing the team to dig up anything incriminating that would give them the evidence needed to make further arrests in the right-wing scene.

Erol doesn’t quite know what to do with that kind of information. He is conducting his own research from his living room couch, but there’s only so much he can do from home without access to the LKA database, and anyway, fuck the Nazis if they think that a cheap butterfly knife can stop him from doing his job.

Kurt isn’t there when he steps out of the elevator at half past eight, and if anyone else has reservations about him coming back so early, they are smart enough not to say. Some considerate soul brings him a chair, and he gets in a few productive hours bent over a computer with Tom, connecting the dots between different unsolved incidents and faces connected to their case. 

Around noon, Kurt walks into the office space, takes one look at Erol, narrows his eyes, and gestures with his chin back at the elevator.

“Come with me,” he says, his voice unreadable, and Erol knows that unless he wants them to get an actual reputation for having tense standoffs and emotional outbursts in front of their subordinates, he doesn’t have much of a choice but to obey.

He pats Tom’s shoulder, tells him to keep digging, and grabs his jacket off the back of his chair, doing his best to pretend that there is absolutely nothing weird about this.

And maybe there isn’t.

It’s entirely possible that Kurt really just wants him along to talk to a witness or look at a crime scene and nothing else. He _is_ 98 percent sure that Kurt is not planning to pull him into a back alley to put a bullet into his head, but beyond that, he has no idea what Kurt might want from him. It doesn’t help that Kurt is silent while they wait for the elevator and doesn’t talk on the way to the parking garage, and by the time they are in the car, Erol’s patience has officially run out.

“Are you going to tell me what this is about?” he asks, glancing at Kurt from the side.

Kurt shrugs and doesn’t look at him.

“You’ll see,” he says, his voice tight, and Erol frowns.

“Are you pissed at me?”

Kurt laughs at that, but it’s not a happy sound. “You think?”

“Okay, so you _are_ mad at me,” Erol says slowly. “What I’m not so sure about is why.”

“You know why,” Kurt grits out from between clenched teeth. “That stunt you pulled in Marzahn. What the fuck were you thinking.”

 _Ah_ , Erol thinks. He feels a strange sense of anticipation settling over him, though what exactly he is meant to be expecting, he doesn’t know.

“I was just doing my job,” he says, then hastily grips the door handle when Kurt takes the corner with a bit too much momentum.

“Suicide missions are not in your job description,” Kurt snaps. “You could have died, you idiot.”

Erol raises his brows. “Or you could have died if that kid had managed to stick his knife into your back,” he says pointedly. “Which is exactly what I was trying to prevent.”

Kurt impatiently honks at an old lady who is taking a little too long to cross the road with her dachshund, and hits the gas as soon as she has set one foot onto the curb.

“That wasn’t your responsibility,” he says roughly. “Those guys are my problem.”

“Your problem?” Erol stares at him incredulously. “You know these people would put me on the next plane to Istanbul if they could, and you think they are _your_ problem?”

“Which is exactly why you shouldn’t have gotten involved,” Kurt retorts.

“So I’m supposed just let someone stab you in the back, is that it?” Erol hisses. “You got a death wish, you can kill yourself on your own time. If you want your old Nazi buddies to put you out of your misery to get out of paying the gambling debts I’m not supposed to know about, fine, but not on my watch. You are my partner, I’m not going stand by and let you get hurt if I can help it.”

He takes a deep breath, his inhale too loud in the abrupt silence following his words.

Kurt shakes his head in exasperation. “Fuck, man,” he says, his voice somewhere between genuinely frustrated and darkly amused. “Fuck, you’re so – “

“What? I’m what?” Erol demands, then jumps a little when Kurt hits the brakes.

In front of them, a tiny Fiat pulls out into the road, and Kurt promptly squeezes into the narrow parking spot the Fiat has just vacated, then shuts off the engine. For a moment, Erol wonders whether Kurt has pulled over to yell at him without having to worry about crashing the car, but as he glances out through the windshield, he realizes that the street looks oddly familiar.

“That’s my place,” he says, confused. He stares at Kurt uncomprehendingly. “You …” He frowns. “You drove me back to my place?”

Kurt shrugs. “You are supposed to stay home until Sunday.”

Erol raises his brows. “And you know that how?”

“Talked to Seiler,” Kurt says. “And the doctor. You should lie down, get some rest.”

“Right,” Erol drawls and lets that sink in for a moment. The whiplash of going from angry accusations to grudging concern between one second and the next leaves him feeling strangely off-kilter: Distantly, he is aware that his fingers are shaking even as his mind is suddenly perfectly quiet.

It’s the moment of silence before the storm.

“Okay.” He takes a breath, pushes the door open and then pauses, with one foot out of the car.

“Well, are you coming or what?”

“Huh?” Kurt makes, confused, and Erol shrugs, the gesture far more nonchalant than he really feels.

“If you are actually enforcing my house arrest, the least you can do is come up and tell me about how the investigation has been going while I make us some coffee.”

Kurt stares. He looks caught out, nervous, surprised, as if he isn’t the one who has brought them to this point, literally and figuratively.

Then he nods and removes the key from the ignition.

“Why not,” he says, a little hoarsely, and that, Erol thinks as he unlocks the front door for them a moment later, that is the million-euro question.

He feels Kurt’s presence behind him acutely all the way up to the fourth floor, but in the door to the apartment, Kurt lingers, strangely hesitant.

“Your boyfriend still in Hamburg?” he asks, and Erol heads across the open living space to the kitchen area so he doesn’t have to look at him.

“Yes, he’s gone all month,” he says, and turns on the coffeemaker. “Why?” he asks, and it’s meant to sound like a casual question but instead it feels dangerously loaded, for reasons he doesn’t entirely understand.

“I thought he’d be here to play nurse,” Kurt shrugs, still standing next to the dining table, halfway between the door and the kitchen area, hands buried in the pockets of his jeans.

“He’s his own man,” Erol says sharply, then realizes how that sounds, and continues awkwardly: “It’s not – I didn’t even tell him what happened.”

“Uhuh,” Kurt makes doubtfully, and Erol turns away from the blatant skepticism in his face to pour beans into the grinder. He doesn’t even really want coffee anymore, but it gives him something to do with his hands.  
  
“Anyway,” he says, “I don’t need a nurse. I’m fine.” He looks up. “I worked a homicide case last year with a broken nose, remember?”

Kurt’s face darkens a little. “I did apologize for that, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” Erol says pointedly and grabs two mugs from the cabinet behind him. “You apologized while you had me chained to a radiator.”

Kurt has the grace to look a little embarrassed. “That was different,” he says stubbornly. “I didn’t – “

“I’m not mad anymore,” Erol interrupts him, realizing even as he says it that it is the truth.

“I’m not mad.” He exhales, a little shakily. “I’m just trying to figure out how we went from _back then_ to _this.”_ He gestures vaguely, trying to convey what _this_ entails: him, Kurt, the coffee, the stitches holding together his skin, and most of all the suffocating, exhilarating tension between them that he finds impossible to put into words.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Kurt says flatly, but the cagey look in his eyes suggests otherwise. He looks like he is thinking about bolting, and Erol is reminded of the rescue dog again, wonders if today he is going to get bitten for pushing too hard, too far.

But somehow, even that possibility seems vastly preferable to the alternative, because Erol can’t even imagine simply returning to their fraught, precarious status quo. Besides, he’s never been good at letting sleeping dogs lie.

He abandons his coffeemaking efforts and steps back into the living space. Without the kitchen counter between them, he feels unprotected, vulnerable, and he crosses his arms in front of his chest.

“Rafika thinks,” he starts carefully, “that we put ourselves at risk. That it was safer for both of us when everyone was convinced that you don’t give a shit about me.”

Kurt freezes. He looks torn between fight and flight, and Erol tries to prepare himself for either – but instead Kurt’s shoulders drop and his eyes flutter shut in resignation.

“Yeah,” he says ruefully and rubs his forehead. When nothing else is forthcoming, Erol takes another step towards him.

“Yeah _what_?” he asks impatiently, and Kurt throws up his hands in a gesture of helpless frustration.

“ _What_ what?” he snaps. “What else do you want me to say? I don’t –“

“You don’t give a shit about me?” Erol asks, his voice a challenge, and even though he knows that it really shouldn’t matter, he is surprised by how much the possibility now bothers him.

“I don’t _know_ ,” Kurt growls. “I don’t know what happened. I want –“ He breaks off abruptly, drags a trembling hand through his hair.

“What do you want?” Erol asks tonelessly, and he can barely hear his own voice over the sound of the blood pounding in his ears.

Everything slows down, narrows in on the distance between them, somehow at once too close and too far away. And suddenly Kurt is right there, in his space, crowding him back against the dining table, and for a moment, Erol thinks Kurt is actually going to hit him.

Instead, he kisses him.

It still feels a bit like a punch to the gut, and not only because Kurt kisses like he fights: aggressive, clever, a little mean. There’s nothing hesitant about that kiss now that he’s crossed the line - he’s got one hand wrapped around the back of Erol’s neck, the other splayed over his chest, as if he’s worried that _Erol_ might be the one who wants to get away.

And Erol is vaguely aware that there are probably good reasons to pull back, but with Kurt’s mouth against his, he finds it difficult to remember what they are. He feels weak with terror, dizzy with arousal, and most of all utterly, deeply relieved – because this, here, right now, is the inevitable conclusion to every interaction between them over the past six months, _this_ is what he has been waiting for, and so Erol fists his hands in the front of Kurt’s jacket and kisses back.

He licks into Kurt’s mouth experimentally, feels the sharp sting of teeth nipping at his bottom lip in response, tugs on Kurt’s jacket to pull him closer, faintly amused by the show of resistance Kurt puts up before grinding up against him on his own volition a second later, and then they are making out in earnest.

Their kisses are open-mouthed, wet, _filthy_ , their hands roaming. When Erol slips his hands underneath Kurt’s t-shirt, he isn't met with any resistance. His fingertips skim over Kurt’s sides, graze the top of his hipbones, and Kurt shudders a little and lets his own hands wander down Erol’s back, hesitating for the briefest moment before his palms come to rest on Erol’s ass, pulling him in. Their hips collide, and Erol hisses sharply when he feels the hard length of Kurt’s erection brushing against his own cock, full and straining almost painfully against the front of his pants.

“Fuck,” Kurt curses and lets his forehead fall onto Erol’s shoulder. But it’s not a sign of defeat: a moment later, his teeth find the soft skin in the curve of Erol’s neck and bite down _hard_. Erol groans, his hips snapping forward reflexively, and Kurt growls into his neck and pushes back. They rut against each other like teenagers, no – like animals, frantically, inelegantly, with Kurt’s teeth scraping against Erol’s pulse point and Erol’s fingernails raking down Kurt’s back, too far gone to even think of sparing a hand to pop open the buttons on their fucking pants.

Eventually, Erol’s hands slide lower, his fingers brushing against the waistband of Kurt’s jeans where his spine dips in the small of his back. Kurt doesn’t stop, doesn’t falter, not even when Erol slips a hand underneath he denim, traces the firm shape of Kurt’s ass through the thin fabric of his boxers – but when Erol’s fingers creep a little lower and their cocks slide together _just so_ , Kurt makes a sound that is not quite a sob and jerks against him, and oh hell, Erol can actually feel Kurt’s cock twitching against his own. He moans, overwhelmed, feels heat pool low in his sternum, and he grinds against Kurt again, once, twice, before his own climax hits.

The force of his orgasm is enough to almost make him black out. Or perhaps it’s his injury that is making him feel a little faint, because before he even has the chance to catch his breath or can consider feeling mortified, an angry twinge shoots up his side and his knees buckle under him.

“Ouch, fuck,” he curses and tries to breathe through the pain, aware that the only things holding him upright are the dining table against his back and Kurt’s hands on his waist.

“Shit, come here, sit,” Kurt says and steers him to the couch with strong hands. Gratefully, Erol lets himself fall into the pillows and doesn’t protest when Kurt squeezes in next to him to push up his shirt.

“Stitches look okay,” he finally says. His hands linger, fingers gentle against Erol’s skin. “Just give it a moment.”

“So much for getting some rest today,” Erol says dryly, and it’s a joke, but Kurt grimaces and pulls back his hand.

“Sorry,” he says, and Erol rolls his eyes at him. 

“Don’t apologize,” he says. “This is definitely less boring than spending the day in bed watching the news.”

Kurt snorts, amused, but his hands are careful when he pulls Erol’s shirt back down. He shifts them around on the couch until Erol’s head is supported by the backrest and he can pull Erol’s legs into his lap. He pulls off Erol’s shoes and drops them to the floor, carelessly, then wraps a palm around Erol’s ankle, rubbing small circles into his skin, and yeah, okay, Erol can see how a respectable girl from a rich family might fall for this guy, and shit, he wasn’t supposed to be thinking that.

“I’ve never done this kind of thing,” Kurt suddenly says, studying Erol’s ankle bone as if it’s the most interesting thing in the room, and Erol makes a point of raising his brows at him even though Kurt can’t really see it.

“Cheating, you mean?” he says, perhaps a little more meanly than necessary, but he’s feeling dangerously comfortable and soft, and he is desperate to steer his thoughts back into safer waters.

Kurt actually laughs, unfazed. “No,” he says ruefully. “That’s definitely something I have done before.”

“Hm,” Erol says, “you mean fucking coworkers?” He’s deliberately playing dumb now, and Kurt must be able to tell, but to Erol’s surprise Kurt doesn’t seem inclined to call him out on it, content enough to play along.

“Once,” he says dryly, his fingers still drawing patterns on Erol’s skin.

“So you did bang Petrovic?” Erol asks, not entirely sure if he wants to know the answer but somehow unable to stop himself. Kurt looks up at him as if he’s surprised that Erol would actually bring this up, then shakes his head decisively.

“No,” he says, sounding mildly horrified at the idea. “She wanted to but – look at her, starstruck naive little girl, not even I am that much of an asshole. No, it was a long time ago.”

“Okay,” Erol says, intrigued despite himself. “And?”

Kurt shrugs. “It was a mess.” He quirks a smile, morbidly amused. “Told myself I’d never do it again.”

Erol snorts. “And yet here we are.”

“Yeah,” Kurt concedes, then looks down at Erol’s legs again.

“This is different,” he finally says, and Erol firmly ignores the way his heart beats a little faster at Kurt's words.

“Because I’m a man,” he says carefully. “Because you don’t do guys.”

“No,” Kurt says, then pauses. “Well, yes, I guess, that too.”

Erol doesn’t even know how to start parsing that response.

“Never wanted to before?” he asks, focusing on the easy part of the equation.

“Who knows,” Kurt shrugs. “You know the kind of people who raised me. Can you imagine what they would have done if they’d found me jerking off to gay porn rags under the covers? I liked girls fine. Anything else was irrelevant. Was always just easier that way.”

Erol thinks of the joyless, hateful home that produced Kurt and then eventually spit him out. Thinks of the way they met. Thinks of the mess they just made of themselves and the fact that Kurt is now giving him a fucking footrub while they are practically cuddling on the couch.

“So why now?” he asks, his mouth dry.

Kurt pulls up a shoulder, but he doesn’t look away. “You get under my skin,” he says. “You just don’t know how to leave well enough alone. Pisses me off like nothing else, but it also makes it impossible to walk away. I’ve tried, believe me. But then I turn around and you are right there, and I look at you and can’t stop thinking about all the crazy things I want to do to you.”

“Like what?” Erol asks quietly, heart in his throat. 

“Put dark red lipstick on you and lick it off,” Kurt says hoarsely. “Make you go down on me in the elevator at the office, see if you can make me come before the doors open on the top floor. I want to – “

“– fuck me?” Erol asks, when Kurt trails off, and he nods, in something like resignation.

“Yeah,” he says. “that too.”

“Okay,” Erol says, proud that he manages to keep his voice steady despite the hysteria lurking in the back of his mind.

“Okay?” Kurt asks, looking honestly surprised, and Erol realizes with a jolt that Kurt actually expected him to say no.

“What do you want me to say?” he shrugs. “It’s a very bad, awful, terrible idea on so many levels that I don’t even know where to begin.”

Kurt quirks a half-smile. “That’s what you said about my last proposition.”

“I did,” Erol agrees dryly, “and look where it got us.”

Kurt stares at him. “We’ve been in worse situations,” he says slowly, and Erol nods heavily.

“True,” he says. “So where do we start?”

Kurt’s hand starts moving again, slowly inching up his calf. “We could start by getting out of these disgusting pants,” he proposes, a speculative look in his eyes.

“Keep going, and I'll begin to think that not all your suggestions are terrible,” Erol says, and moves his leg to give Kurt easier access to the inside of his thigh.

“You have no idea,” Kurt replies, and his tone is a challenge, a threat, a promise.

“Guess we’ll see,” Erol says and realizes, to his dismay, that he is actually looking forward to finding out.

**Author's Note:**

> Mini Soundtrack: **Berlin Beats**  
>  With the exception of _Körper_ , all of these come with music videos that I think are kind of fun to watch as well.
> 
> [Gheddo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDnpLdMDflk) (Eko Fresh ft. Bushido, 2006): Turkish-German Eko Fresh and Tunesian-German Bushido are two of the big names in German hip hop. Here, they sing about growing up as second/third-generation immigrants in German "ghettos" (of which Berlin-Tempelhof is one) and about the way their identities are tied to their "ghetto roots." 
> 
> [Kids (2 Finger an den Kopf)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkMg_X9lHMc) (Marteria, 2014): Rapper Marteria is, like Kurt, GDR-born. He isn't a Berlin native but this music video is set in Berlin. The song is a rejection of adult responsibility and respectability from the perspective of someone growing up in a lower-class neighborhood. It reminded me of Kurt and Erol who both try so hard to embody the facade of an upper/middle-class lifestyle despite their lower-class roots.
> 
> [One Night Stand](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-_iVRTAFQ8) (Capital Bra, 2018): Capital Bra is a Berlin-based Russian/Ukrainian/German Rapper. The song is about casual sex with potential feelings, and the old question whether it's love or just a one-night stand ...
> 
> [Körper](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1b7oUgjU3s) (Aziza-A, 1997): Aziza-A is from Berlin and was one of the first female Turkish-German hip hop artists. This song is all about physical desire and uninhibited sex. Erol might have memories of dancing or having sex to this song in his late teens. 
> 
> [Berlin Berlin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06p-xgXb6cE) (Alpa Gun ft. Jasmin Madeleine, 2015): Alpa Gun is a Turkish-German rapper from Berlin. In contrast to Eko Fresh and Bushido's song about rough street life in low-income Berlin neighborhoods, this is an upbeat love song to Berlin, both its good and bad sides.


End file.
